The ports controversy is an especially difficult one for the Bush Administration and the GOP. If the details get scrutiny, the deal could have ramifications all the way to the next presidential election.

After her role in hyping unfounded claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda ties – claims that greatly buttressed the White House’s arguments for war, Judith Miller of the New York Times faced unparalleled criticism. So what happened to her? She got back to work advancing that same unilateralist line. This time, she started going after the leadership of the United Nations – the same folks whose sanctions and inspection program ensured that Saddam did not develop WMDs. For the past year, she has been cranking out biased reports about alleged wrongdoing at the UN in such an exaggerated way as to cast the organization and its leadership as almost beyond redemption. An examination of her recent record.

It’s one thing to intensely dislike George W. Bush. It’s another thing entirely to want to defeat him so bad, you are willing to adopt his own bring-’em-on worldview. But that is exactly the position in which many progressives and the “liberal media” find themselves.

The Bush administration, faced with a stinker of an economic situation, plans to run for re-election on a national defense-foreign policy plank. But how’s it going to do that? Can anyone seriously trust any significant claim from this gang that definitely can’t shoot straight—then insists that the goal was always to hit the wall not the target? Russ looks at all the foreign policy goals that had to be altered.

Team Bush is in training for the upcoming political Olympics. In recent days, we’ve seen vigorous demonstrations of hedging, ducking and furious backpedaling. Plus that most esoteric of sports: hair splitting. At issue, of course, is the Bush administration’s attempt to escape responsibility for starting a war over something that did not exist. Take its parsing of the word ‘imminent’….

The White House wanted the UN to stay out of all important decisions and roles in Iraq. But suddenly, it can’t welcome the UN into that country fast enough. What gives? Well, there’s a mess in Iraq and an election coming up back here. Russ explains.

Voters traditionally consider Democrats less capable than Republicans on foreign policy. But is that true? To test that notion, compare Bush’s go-it-alone war on Iraq and Clinton’s multilateralism in the Balkans.

When the EU granted trade preferences to Western Balkans countries, it meant to help poor countries develop. But as a sugar scandal shows, it’s not easy to overcome a deep-rooted legacy of corruption in the region.

(Versions of this article appeared in The Age (Australia) and Information (Denmark) ) Russ reports on the fast-shifting investigation into the murder of prime minister Djindjic and the fight to rid Serbia of Milosevic-era organized crime and state-sponsored thuggery.

(Versions of this article also appeared in The New York Daily News, Information (Denmark) and Danas (Yugoslavia) ) Russ obtains and analyzes an advance copy of a scorching report on the extent of Yugoslav arms sales and military assistance to Iraq.

Past U.S. Efforts Shed Doubt On Post-War Rebuilding Of Iraq, writes Russ from former Yugoslavia. “If this place is indicative of the U.S. commitment after the bombs stop falling, the future Iraq won’t be a pretty picture.”

“If anyone ever finds a way to detect and dig up the 100 million land mines that litter the earth, it’s likely to be Richard Walden. Russ profiles the irreverent humanitarian relief maestro, founder of the unconventional relief organization Operation USA, who has devoted his life to bringing attention and resources to appalling scenarios of human misery.”

Beyond the war against al Qaeda, there’s another anti-terror struggle being waged within the U.S. foreign policy establishment itself. The point of contention: To attack Iraq or not. The combatants fall into two camps: the Saddam Hawks and the Saddam Doves. On the outcome of their struggle may hang the prospects for peace or war in the first decade of the 21st century.

Sept 10, 1999 –The Village Voice CIA Out of Control – An eye-opening look at the CIA, circa 1991. What is it suppose to do, and what does it really do?

Feb 07, 1994 –The NationThe Deforesting of Irian Jaya
– Carrying its odd trio through a valley deep in Irian Jaya, the van made excellent time. The driver, a young hipster from far-off Java in jeans and reflecting sunglasses, cranked up a scratchy tape of Indonesian rock and drummed away on the dashboard. The wiry old man next to me, toothless and sporting nothing save his tribe’s traditional penis gourd, grinned sweetly as we made dust fly. But his cheeriness could only momentarily transcend a sobering reality: that his culture, which dates back 10,000 years, may be wiped out in ten.

Jan 05, 1990 – The Christian Science Monitor Celebration and Rage in Bucharest, As Romanians settle into their first free new year, there are still grim reminders of the price paid for emancipation.

Dec 29, 1989 – The Christian Science
Monitor
Hard-line Police Given Ultimatum, For most of a week, even after dictator
Nicolae Ceausescu tried to flee his own country, Romania has been held hostage
by a desperate band of assassins.

With the Bush administration’s promulgation of stunningly weak standards on mercury pollution, and with growing evidence of the mass poisoning of the American people, there’s a prime opportunity. Environmentalists should do more to reach out to the millions of Americans who hunt and fish. Assuming that generally conservative “outdoorsmen” and –women will vote only based on guns and permits is very short-sighted, strategically.

It’s not easy being a cop. I know this because I read a police report describing how officers in Manchester, NH, on routine bicycle patrol, encountered a man wearing “what appeared to be a costume made to resemble a penis.”

85-year old Marie Runyon, a white Southern lady living in Harlem for the last half-century, where she has been a pioneer in civil rights and housing matters, has a chance encounter that leads to a remarkable dinner with the mother of Amadou Diallo, shot by police 41 times in a tragic accident.

It’s the world’s biggest – and perhaps most elaborate — scam, and it’s growing rapidly. Maybe you didn’t bite when those e-mails or calls came in, but plenty of people did. Read one such story…

March 2001 –Esquire (Netherlands)
More than the usual Hollywood fodderThis article appeared in the magazines Esquire (Netherlands edition) and Focus Knack (Belgium), and in the magazine supplements of La Repubblica (Italy) and Die Tages-Anzeiger (Switzerland).

When the marriage of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman busted up, longtime Scientology-watchers suspected there was more there than just the usual gossip column histrionics. Russ takes a look.

This Also Appeared in Der Spiegel (Germany), and The Good Weekend ((The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald) In 1952, Stanley Glickman was a promising young painter studying in Paris. Then one night he shared a drink with some fellow Americans, and his life fell apart. Did the CIA spike his drink with LSD?

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind), the powerful chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, made a name for himself by investigating alleged improprieties in the Clinton White House. He famously called Clinton a “scumbag” for his personal behavior and has relentlessly pursued White House campaign finance irregularities, but as this in-depth investigation shows, Burton has his own complicated history.

The German Government says the Church of Scientology is a tyrannical cult that recalls the country’s dark history. The Scientologists say it’s the Germans who haven’t changed. In an increasingly bitter battle, two powers collide over the meaning of freedom and the burden of the past.

Patrolman Phil Caruso and lawyer Richard Hartman built the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association into an arrogant, insular, and wealthy institution that stands above the law and beyond scrutiny. Where is the $63 million a year in tax funds and union dues going? Only their friends know for sure.

When, oh when, will the U.S. “mainstream media” finally stop hemming and hawing, parsing and understating? When will they simply go for the jugular to confirm what any thoughtful American has already learned from “less reputable” but increasingly relevant alternative information sources: that from the beginning of the Bush administration, invading Iraq has always been as much an article of faith for the president as, well, promoting faith over reason?

Times have certainly changed when bloggers who rail about mainstream journalism can rent part of the Rainbow Room, atop Manhattan’s GE building — a temple of the media establishment — to announce the latest iteration of the revolution.

Watch them cry and shout! With the colossal screw-ups over Hurricane Katrina, even Fox News Channel reporters were furious at the administration. Read the amazing story of the media’s late wake-up call on the Bush Administration’s priorities and competencies. Also, follow the links to watch STUNNING footage of reporters gone wild!

Appropriate compassion for jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller notwithstanding, the editors of the Times have failed to clarify the exact role of their controversial colleague in the so-called Valerie Plame Leak, aware as they are of Miller’s checkered professional record and her seeming disdain for standards the rest of the profession strives to uphold. While defending its own, the paper also has a larger responsibility—both to its readers and to journalism—not to serve as a propaganda organ, obscuring key unresolved questions about Miller, her work and this particular case.

The New York Times’ Inspector Clouseau-like Judith Miller continues on her crusade to prejudge and taint the UN leadership and the promise of multilateralism – making mistakes as fast as her editors can clean them up. Why, oh why, is this woman still working there?

Well, wasn’t that some excitement over the unmasking of Deep Throat? Besides resolving a long-standing mystery, the revelation came at an especially auspicious moment. Investigative journalism desperately needs a boost right about now. Here’s why – and how.

After her role in hyping unfounded claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda ties – claims that greatly buttressed the White House’s arguments for war, Judith Miller of the New York Times faced unparalleled criticism. So what happened to her? She got back to work advancing that same unilateralist line. This time, she started going after the leadership of the United Nations – the same folks whose sanctions and inspection program ensured that Saddam did not develop WMDs. For the past year, she has been cranking out biased reports about alleged wrongdoing at the UN in such an exaggerated way as to cast the organization and its leadership as almost beyond redemption. An examination of her recent record.

Faced with difficulties of maintaining White House access in a time of unsurpassed administration spin and hostility to the media, did New York Times editors lower their guard in the way they handled a front-page article about suspect ‘secret tapes’ of conversations between George W. Bush and “a friend?” If the tapes were really worthy of front-page treatment, why didn’t the paper do better analysis and work up a hard lede instead of presenting the ‘revelations’ in a kind of soft-focus way that revealed little?

There’s turmoil at The New York Times, but Russ finds that the problems go deeper than Jayson Blair or Howell Raines. He focuses on the role of the paper, and one star reporter in particular, in promoting the now-discredited Bush Administration line that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, the key justification for the invasion.

Russ examines how journalists get taken in by contrarian books and sexy if deeply flawed theses. A case study: The Skeptical Environmentalist, the best-seller with the rosy prognosis on the state of the earth’s ecosystems.

Russ finds himself stranded in – gasp!—Paris while on assignment for Talk Magazine at the precise moment its owners decide to fold the publication. Here, Russ ruminates on the magazine’s short, fabulous life.

Freedom Forum’s Financial Follies: Russ looks at how journalism’s largest foundation lost hundreds of millions in investments, but continues to plan an opulent new journalism museum – and to pay officers huge salaries.

The 2000 presidential campaign was remarkably scripted, and the debate severely constricted. Does that mean the media can’t broaden the discussion, can’t compel candidates to talk about what really matters most? Russ says we can — and must.

Worried about appearing inside the same covers as material that, in one industrial giant’s phrase, “encompasses sexual, political, social issues,” big advertisers are stepping up pressure on magazines to alter their content.

When, oh when, will the U.S. “mainstream media” finally stop hemming and hawing, parsing and understating? When will they simply go for the jugular to confirm what any thoughtful American has already learned from “less reputable” but increasingly relevant alternative information sources: that from the beginning of the Bush administration, invading Iraq has always been as much an article of faith for the president as, well, promoting faith over reason?

There’s turmoil at The New York Times, but Russ finds that the problems go deeper than Jayson Blair or Howell Raines. He focuses on the role of the paper, and one star reporter in particular, in promoting the now-discredited Bush Administration line that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, the key justification for the invasion.

Why are those who opposed the war in Iraq left feeling like they opposed freedom? Russ explains the White House tricks that turned the tables on the real humanitarians, and what the humanitarians should have done about it.

(A version of this article also appeared in La Stampa (Italy)and Information(Denmark). ) Past U.S. Efforts Shed Doubt On Post-War Rebuilding Of Iraq, writes Russ from former Yugoslavia. “If this place is indicative of the U.S. commitment after the bombs stop falling, the future Iraq won’t be a pretty picture.”

President Bush brought Ken Tomlinson in as his broadcasting czar with a mandate to rid public airwaves of perceived liberal bias at PBS, the home of Frontline, Sesame Street, Nova, and (when Tomlinson came on board) Bill Moyers. Now, having already been canned for improprieties in that witch hunt, he is under investigation for alleged misdoings while holding a second administration post. Among other things, he is being investigated for using his office to oversee a stable of racehorses named after Afghan rebels, as well as more banal corruption and self-dealing, including improperly putting a friend on the payroll, repeatedly tasking government employees to run personal errands, and over-billing his hours to the government. Due to a lack of press coverage, few Americans know about any of this – nor how it is part of a larger pattern of cronyism, self-dealing and flat-out madness in this administration.

Though they publicly bemoan the “culture of corruption,” Democratic leaders and operatives privately acknowledge that they see no means of regaining power without cozying up to the real “special interests.” And so, albeit to a lesser extent than the republicans who now control all branches of the federal government, the would-be reformers find themselves fighting the quicksand of corporate entanglements.

Though they profess a need for campaign finance reform and other policies that prioritize the common good, many key figures in the Democratic pantheon personally earn a living helping corporate interests advance the very causes that their party publicly deplores.

A new study by the Real News Project, a nonprofit noncommercial investigative reporting entity I founded, shows the extent of the problem. Examining 25 key Democratic consultants, advertising and public relations execs and lobbyists, we discovered a veritable witches’ brew of odious agendas…….

As the nation gears up for a battle over control of Congress this year and for the presidency in two years, there will be much effort to differentiate the two dominant parties. Less likely to be discussed are the ways in which the parties are alike. A new report from the Real News Project (www.realnews.org) examines the work performed by key Democratic Party operatives who earn their “real money” helping corporations exert influence in Washington. The report raises questions about conflicts of interest that have so far escaped public attention.

When, oh when, will the U.S. “mainstream media” finally stop hemming and hawing, parsing and understating? When will they simply go for the jugular to confirm what any thoughtful American has already learned from “less reputable” but increasingly relevant alternative information sources: that from the beginning of the Bush administration, invading Iraq has always been as much an article of faith for the president as, well, promoting faith over reason?

This is no joke: The president’s top domestic policy adviser, Claude Allen, was arrested and charged with a scheme to rip off retail stores by “returning” items for refunds that he had not actually purchased. Behind this sad incident lurk two interrelated calamities of the Bush years: the continuing placement of the dubiously-qualified in high positions, and the use of people of color as window dressing for policies that harm communities of color.

The ports controversy is an especially difficult one for the Bush Administration and the GOP. If the details get scrutiny, the deal could have ramifications all the way to the next presidential election.

Ever wonder why Michael Brown, a failed lawyer with no management or disaster experience, was put in charge of defending Americans against natural and man-made disasters? Here, for the first time, the full, shocking story.

With the unfolding news about secret NSA domestic surveillance outside of the law, the talk is already about high crimes, about impeachment. It is about a strong constitution versus a strong president, safety versus civil liberties. But the important thing here is not to get caught up in tantalizing blue-sky scenarios before we address some key issues that we need to understand if we are ever to get our democracy back on track.

The narrowness of the Scooter Libby indictment shows again the limitations of “the system” in confronting the sheer magnitude of an entire government subverted, and with it a proud people, from all that we once revered. For those disturbed by the deceit and the intrigues, the reckless warmongering, the wholesale looting of the common trust to benefit the privileged, the clampdown on rights and liberties, the unconscionable enthusiasm for torture, the embracing of a Know-Nothing attitude toward science, the hastening of environmental collapse, the buying of the legislative process and the neutering of the judicial one, waiting for indictments is no longer sufficient.

Everyone with a vested interest in minimizing the significance of any outcome of the Valerie Plame leak probe-i.e. anyone who goes down with the good ship Bushypop, from hack legislators to hack pundits to hack political hacks-has spent the past week or so frantically digging through their chest of hoary excuses. Perhaps it is from a subconscious sense of guilt, perhaps it is just good political sense. Whatever, we’re too far along in the public debate about honesty and trust to let the spin go unchallenged. So here are some examples of what we’re already seeing, some things we might expect to see, and some reasonable quick-responses to them.

Why can’t we find out who’s being arrested and locked up here in the United States in the name of the “war on terror”? Growing signs that domestic anti-terror efforts may miss their target, while threatening the freedom of the innocent.

Can you hear the footsteps growing louder? Mounting anecdotal evidence suggests that civil libertarians were not exaggerating when they began long ago to worry about prospects for dangerous excess in the ‘response’ to 9/11. If it ever was just about the government poking into our requests for library books on the history of timing devices, those days are long past. In the past week alone, the following troubling developments and revelations were reported, but not necessarily widely discussed or appreciated for their collective import…

Appropriate compassion for jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller notwithstanding, the editors of the Times have failed to clarify the exact role of their controversial colleague in the so-called Valerie Plame Leak, aware as they are of Miller’s checkered professional record and her seeming disdain for standards the rest of the profession strives to uphold. While defending its own, the paper also has a larger responsibility—both to its readers and to journalism—not to serve as a propaganda organ, obscuring key unresolved questions about Miller, her work and this particular case.

Most of us have an ethical and/or religious framework which influences our beliefs about morally complex issues like the right to die or abortion. For too long, the religious right has dominated the discussion of these issues. Now, besides the Schiavo case, we have pharmacists getting in between doctors and patients and refusing to honor prescriptions of which they don’t approve. It’s time for the reasonable, the balanced, and the fair to regain the upper hand. Here are some ideas for achieving that.

With the Bush administration’s promulgation of stunningly weak standards on mercury pollution, and with growing evidence of the mass poisoning of the American people, there’s a prime opportunity. Environmentalists should do more to reach out to the millions of Americans who hunt and fish. Assuming that generally conservative “outdoorsmen” and –women will vote only based on guns and permits is very short-sighted, strategically.

When are “secret, revelatory” conversations really just spin? Russ explores two recent instances in which The New York Times gave prominent play to supposedly secret tapes it had obtained that, it said, presented new insights into politicians’ thinking and strategy – in particular concerning President Bush. But do these articles really do that? In this time of White House information management and maximum spin, it is more important than ever that news organizations — and the public — exhibit skepticism about such stories.

Russ reports in from Concord, New Hampshire, where the first recount of the presidential race is underway. It’s not clear yet whether the controversial Diebold voting machines function properly, but one thing is: There’s nothing like a paper ballot for restoring public confidence in the political process.

It’s one thing to intensely dislike George W. Bush. It’s another thing entirely to want to defeat him so bad, you are willing to adopt his own bring-’em-on worldview. But that is exactly the position in which many progressives and the “liberal media” find themselves.

The Bush administration, faced with a stinker of an economic situation, plans to run for re-election on a national defense-foreign policy plank. But how’s it going to do that? Can anyone seriously trust any significant claim from this gang that definitely can’t shoot straight—then insists that the goal was always to hit the wall not the target? Russ looks at all the foreign policy goals that had to be altered.

Heard of the Traditional Values Coalition, the group trying to ban federal funding of human sexuality studies, along with legalized abortion and just about everything else? Russ did a little digging into the organization’s cash flow – and found one traditional value: nepotism.

When will we say ‘enough is enough’ to mediocre presidential candidates and issue-lite campaigns? Here’s a proposal for improving the quality of the presidential field and raising the level of discourse.

No one ever accused conservative House Republican Dan Burton of mincing his words. This is, after all, the man who once famously called President Clinton a “scumbag.” But it’s one thing to throw rhetorical bombs at a President from the opposition party, and quite another to denounce your own party’s man as “dictatorial,” as Burton did to President Bush in December. Dictatorial or not, long before Sept. 11, the Bush administration displayed a hearty appetite for secrecy and a strong aversion to sharing information with Congress and the public. Now, it’s becoming clear why.

The 2000 presidential campaign was remarkably scripted, and the debate severely constricted. Does that mean the media can’t broaden the discussion, can’t compel candidates to talk about what really matters most? Russ says we can — and must.

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind), the powerful chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, made a name for himself by investigating alleged improprieties in the Clinton White House. He famously called Clinton a “scumbag” for his personal behavior and has relentlessly pursued White House campaign finance irregularities, but as this in-depth investigation shows, Burton has his own complicated history.

When New York Police Department undercover detective Anthony Venditti was shot down on a Queens street, solving his murder looked relatively simple. But…

January 8, 1991 – The Village Voice A Thousand Points of BlightThree days after Thanksgiving, when planes from AmeriCares, the private Connecticut-based relief organization, landed in Moscow, the American networks were there to gush as crates of medical supplies and food were unloaded. Each box bore the words, “To the Soviet people from the people of the United States-with love,” a slogan even the Soviet television cameras lingered over, as the crates were lowered onto the tarmac by Russian soldiers and students. It was another media triumph for Robert Macauley’s fast-growing charity empire.

November 13, 1989 – The Christian Science MonitorNew York City Votes to Restructure Its GovernmentIN a vote overshadowed by the election of New York City’s first black mayor, New Yorkers Tuesday approved a radical restructuring of their government. The move was an effort to comply with a mandate from the United States Supreme Court. By a 55-to-45 percent margin, voters agreed to transfer functions away from a century-old governmental body unique to New York, splitting its powers between the mayor and an expanded City Council.

August 27, 1989 – The Christian Science MonitorEscalating N.Y. Rents Drive Away BusinessThe National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Cancer Society and Family Service America have at least one thing in common: All have moved out of New York City, citing rapidly escalating rents as a primary factor.

August 20, 1989 – The Christian Science Monitor
Will Times Square Rehab Restore The Glory Days?Ah, Times Square. Now that was a place-for great theater, cabaret, hotels or just a stroll with a sweetheart below the neon lights. It was also the site of some the nation`s largest and most emotional gatherings, from ringing in the New Year to proclaiming victory over the Nazis.

June 12, 1989 – The Christian Science MonitorHousing Shortage Prompts Squatters to Rehabilitate BuildingsNEW YORK is a city of ironies. It has enormous numbers of homeless people – and equal numbers of empty apartments. Upward of 50,000 people are without permanent shelter, and countless tens of thousands live doubled or tripled up in crowded apartments. Yet New York City owns more than 5,000 empty buildings, which if fixed up, could eliminate the shortage.

The Rev. Steve Anderson thought he was just doing what any crusading small-town minister might when he uncovered apparent municipal corruption and sleaze. But he had no idea what he was getting into. Russ looks at one example of the tactics large corporations use to silence citizen-activists.

“If anyone ever finds a way to detect and dig up the 100 million land mines that litter the earth, it’s likely to be Richard Walden. Russ profiles the irreverent humanitarian relief maestro, founder of the unconventional relief organization Operation USA, who has devoted his life to bringing attention and resources to appalling scenarios of human misery.”

On the morning of October 22, 2001, the lifeless body of Manhattan financier Ted Ammon was found in the bedroom of his East Hampton home, felled by a savage beating. The Ammon case, as yet unresolved, has an operatic story line and cast of characters – from a control-obsessed, anger-driven wife to her volatile, building contractor-turned-boyfriend-turned-new-husband—and an astonishing amount of high stakes money, power, exotic real estate, and world-class connections. So who killed Ted Ammon? Russ Baker goes behind the hedgerows and brings us up to speed.

If anyone ever finds a way to detect and dig up the 100 million land mines that litter the earth, it’s likely to be Richard Walden. The irreverent humanitarian relief maestro, founder of the unconventional relief organization Operation USA, has devoted his life to bringing attention and resources to appalling scenarios of human misery. His specialty is creating unlikely partnerships for good, whether that means cajoling corporations to donate medical supplies or planes for disaster relief, nagging government scientists to create innovative land-mine-removal technology, or charming mega-celebrities from Barbra Streisand to Muhammad Ali into using their cachet to persuade fans to do something profound.

The Iron Chef, Masaharu Morimoto, doesn’t mince words. Or anything else, for that matter. His whole persona constitutes a sort of genteel assault on anything remotely conventional about food. Russ hangs out with the outrageous chef.

Just before the notorious convicted murderer Ira Einhorn was extradited to the United States, Russ went to see why the French seemingly had been so reluctant to send him back. Here’s his story on how Ira hijacked the French conscience.

A first-ever detailed look at Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s chief aide and key ‘enforcer’, Bruce Teitelbaum, explores hardball and patronage in the administration credited with turning New York City around.

Russ tracks down expatriate murder suspect Ira Einhorn, the former celebrated hippie guru of Philadelphia, now living in luxurious exile in the South of France while he awaits extradition. World exclusive interview that led to the French prime minister’s decision to sign an order for Einhorn’s extradition.

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind), the powerful chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, made a name for himself by investigating alleged improprieties in the Clinton White House. He famously called Clinton a “scumbag” for his personal behavior and has relentlessly pursued White House campaign finance irregularities, but as this in-depth investigation shows, Burton has his own complicated history.

Kenneth Drummond redefined “chutzpah.” How many school board officials and health center presidents freely raid the till and put their crack-addicted girlfriend on the payroll? Read Russ’ tale of a man who couldn’t say no – and, for years, didn’t have to.

Shortly before 8 A.M. on September 11, Jim Pensiero, an assistant managing editor for The Wall Street Journal, was crossing a pedestrian bridge to the Journal’s offices in the World Financial Center, across the street from the World Trade Center…

Ramzi Yousef is in prison for plotting the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — but we still don’t know who he really is, who he might have been working with and what he could tell us about Sept. 11.
NOTE: Versions of this article also appeared in the Telegraph Magazine (UK), Frankfurter Allgemeine (Germany), NRC Handelsblad (Netherlands), De Standaard (Belgium), Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden), and Weekend Australian.

Thousands Dead, Injured as Hijacked U.S. Airliners Ram Targets; World Trade Towers Brought Down; Tragedy: Assault leaves Manhattan in chaos. Three of the flights were en route to L.A., one to San Francisco. President Bush puts military on highest alert, closes borders and vows to ‘find those responsible.’